After this, Kota did not appear again in public. Indeed, for the next two moons she spent her time almost wholly on her bed, attended by Jensa, and sometimes by Hilka, till, at length, January came. In the last days, Gokarna suddenly became attentive, nay, almost tender, to his wife. He was by nature neither demonstrative nor affectionate. But the matter of his child touched the dominating note of his nature:—pride. And he could not but be interested in the person who had power to present him with sons to whom he could hand down his state and dignity. Gokarna was inordinately anxious for a son. Though his dispassionate nature rebelled bitterly at the thought, he was determined that, should this child prove to be a girl, he would take another wife. Meantime, however, Kota was the object of his highest interest; and not a little was she astonished when he left the conducting of the full-moon sacrifices to an under-priest, that he might stay beside her. He wished to talk with her of the child. But Kota’s three years of wedded life had not prepared her to confide her secret thoughts to her husband, and he got surprisingly little from her on the subject nearest both of them. His conclusion was that she was like all women:—too stupid to think. But had Kota chosen, she could have disclosed to him a little wonder-world of motherhood that would have opened his eyes anew to womankind. Melancholy she had been. Now she was full of dread. Nevertheless, the sacred love was in her; and, in her brighter hours, she had given her child all the tenderness of hope, all the ambitions and desires for its welfare, that her stunted womanhood could conjure up. For the first years of its life, at least, the baby would be her own to love and to rule. Her heart would have something to cling to. The dry dust of her existence was about to put forth flowers and foliage at last. But of such thoughts, and the joy in them, she could tell Gokarna nothing, as he sat beside her mat-bed in mid-January of that year 1207. He could only make ceaseless inquiries as to her welfare; and, toward nightfall, he was rewarded by her suddenly sitting up, and crying to him to send at once for the low-caste nurse who was to attend her in the coming hours.